DPP-IV is a serine protease that belongs to a group of post-proline/alanine cleaving amino-dipeptidases. DPP-IV catalyzes the release of an N-terminal dipeptide of any configuration from proteins, and preferably, the dipeptide contains an N-terminal penultimate proline or alanine.
The physiological role of DPP-IV has not been established fully. It is believed to play an important role in regulatory peptide metabolism, which, among other things, controls various physiological functions including but not limited to glycemic control and insulin sensitivity. In particular, DPP-IV has been implicated in the control of glucose metabolism because its substrates include the insulinotropic hormones, glucagon like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and gastric inhibitory peptide (GIP), which are inactivated by removal of their two N-terminal amino acids.
In vivo administration of synthetic inhibitors of DPP-IV prevents N-terminal degradation of insulinotropic hormones including GLP-1 and GIP resulting in higher plasma concentrations of these hormones, increased insulin secretion and improved glucose tolerance. Therefore, such inhibitors have been proposed for the treatment of patients with impaired glycemic control such as Diabetes Mellitus and related conditions
This proposal has significant difficulties, however. Additional dipeptide cleaving amino-dipeptidases have been discovered including DPP-VII, DPP-VIII, DPP-IX, and fibroblast activation protein (FAP), which can have substrate and inhibitor specificity similar to DPP-IV. The precise physiological role of each of these dipeptide cleaving enzymes is not well defined. But their propensity to cleave N-terminus dipeptides from proteins in general indicates that these amino-dipeptidases are involved in many physiological cycles. Thus, the difficulty concerning inhibitors of DPP-IV is that they can also affect the other members of the enzyme group. The evidence indicates that, for example, other inhibitors of DPP-IV, which also inhibit the other amino-dipeptidases such as DPP-VIII, will cause toxic effects in animals.
Accordingly, a need exists for compounds that are useful for inhibiting DPP-IV without an adverse event profile that precludes chronic administration.